


Fission

by theheartischill



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, General Post-Winter Soldier warnings apply to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheartischill/pseuds/theheartischill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hard version is hard because there isn't--he doesn't think there's a word for it. If there is he doesn't know it. Nothing holds the enormity of what he's done. Nothing in the world of people. At the bottom of the ocean, maybe, all darkness and weight. Or beyond: in space, beyond the gravitational pull of the sun, where it is airless and frozen. Past the limits, in places no one has ever had to name because no one could see them and live.</p><p>Or: Bucky is Bruce's lab assistant, more or less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fission

The sun rises and he tries to name it: red, orange, pink. Above is black; below will fade into blue. The flecks of gold will lighten to dustings of white. The strip in between presents difficulties. When he calls it purple he can see that it is purple; when he calls it blue he can see that it is blue. So too with gold, or gray, or amber. The color doesn't change; the indeterminate quantity is in him. He doesn't know a name for becoming.

*

The easy version is: you are not the things which have been done to you. Except -- he has been told -- except, in his case, the things which have been done to him encompass the things which he has done. This complicates the concept, but simplifies the answer: if he is not what has been done to him, and he is, by extension, not what he has done, then what is he? Then he is nothing. See? Easy.

Steve doesn't like this idea. "I believe people are more than that. You have to account for what's inside them, too."

He doesn't say: _ah--people_. Inside him are only the spaces left by things which have been diligently erased. He doesn't say that, either. He says: "Tell me again. What I am."

" _Who_ you are." Steve's stubbornness has been making its presence known lately, like sunlight spilling across floorboards. Steve hesitates long enough that he wonders if Steve is starting to suspect this never changes anything. But Steve starts his litany anyway: _Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. You grew up in Brooklyn, in New York_ , _not far from where we are now. You_ … And so on. Stones thrown into a bottomless river, but beneath the words is something. A rhythm. Water rushing over rocks.

He can recite along by now. Sometimes at night he to tries say it to himself, but other things get mixed in: _Your name is James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. Three five five_ … Or: _You grew up in Brooklyn, New York. We were best friends. Pray for us now and at the hour of our death_. Which has passed him by.

In the corner Sam politely pretends to read.

*

"I don't like doctors," he'd said to Steve, and so no one has examined his body (yet) or drawn any blood (yet) or done any tests (yet). If they had maybe they would know just how sharp they--a different they--made his ears: sharp enough that when the arguments about him get heated, snippets of them can filter into his awareness through the floor. Their floor.

Mostly Steve gets heated. Mostly he can hear Steve trying to convince someone else he's safe for others to be around. Sometimes there's that word: Bucky.

A name is a thing people have. Like--oh, families. Memories. The internal shifts they keep waiting to notice in him. Insides. There are things he has enough of--just enough to know what he does not have. He studies his hands: skin, machine. He wants to tell Steve it's wrong. Not Bucky. Not safe.

*

The hard version is hard because there isn't--he doesn't think there's a word for it. If there is he doesn't know it. Nothing holds the enormity of what he's done. Nothing in the world of people. At the bottom of the ocean, maybe, all darkness and weight. Or beyond: in space, beyond the gravitational pull of the sun, where it is airless and frozen. Past the limits, in places no one has ever had to name because no one could see them and live.

And he doesn't want to look at it. That makes it hard, too.

*

"I don't like doctors," he says, and Steve says, "He's not that kind of doctor," so he says, "Okay," and opens the door, which Steve closes behind Bucky without coming in.

*

The not-that-kind-of-doctor is wearing a white coat, but over blue jeans and a soft-looking sweater. The not-that-kind-of-doctor says, "Hi," with a little wave.

He says, "Usually they don't leave me with one person."

The not-that-kind-of-doctor says, "Oh yeah?"

He explains: "I'm dangerous."

The not-that-kind-of-doctor makes a face somehow between sorrow and warmth. "We have something in common."

"You don't look dangerous." In his forties, of average build, in clothing unsuited for combat that doesn't look to be concealing weapons--although you can never know.

"Anyone ever tell you that looks can be deceiving?" He winces. "Sorry, I shouldn't have--that was insensitive."

Many people have told him many things, and he does not know most of them. "You did your research."

"I'm a scientist. It's kind of my thing. I'm Bruce." He crosses the room and extends a hand. "I don't know if Steve told you."

"He did." A few minutes ago. "But I forgot." Everything he wants to keep slips away so fast. Belatedly he takes Bruce's hand, uncertain of the movements. His palm is soft.

"What should I call you?"

No one has asked him that. Steve has said he has so many choices, but no one thought of this one. Including him. "I don't know. I don't." He fumbles with the empty space at the end of the sentence. "Steve says my name is James Buchanan Barnes. Or Bucky."

"What do you think your name is?"

Nothing feels his. He is a confluence of ley lines; how to pick one strand? "Bucky, I guess. It was the first one anyone called me."

"Bucky. Nice to meet you." Bruce, who is not that kind of doctor, smiles.

"Why are you here?"

"Oh boy." Bruce inhales through his nose, exhales as if through a straw. "You want the short version, or the long version?"

"Short."

"Well. There are a couple different ways to tell it. But the one I always think of first is, I was supposed to die, and then I didn't. And then that kind of… kept happening. And now I'm here."

Bucky didn't think he was expecting anything, and yet that was not what he expected. "What's the long version?"

"Uh. You know what, I'll send Natasha over with my file. If that's okay. I'm not trying to be cagey--you can ask me questions, if you have them. Just… it gets complicated."

"Okay." With his artificial hand he worries at the sleeve of the other arm. "Why am I here? I mean in this room."

"Well, I could use a lab assistant."

Bucky understands why he is treated like a hybrid of a child and an animal. It's better treatment than the thing he is deserves. Still: it's wearing thin. "Why am I really here?"

That strange look again: between bitterness and something not. "Funny how hard it is to get a straight answer around here, right?"

"Not really."

"Yeah. Well. I think everyone's trying, but--" He shrugs. "Old habits. --There's this expression--"

"I know that one." In the first days, before time had settled for him, he told Steve, once, _I don't know why I saved you_ , and Steve had smiled like he was half-dying and said, _Well, they say old habits die hard_. Old habits. _Pray for us sinners_. "So."

"So. Steve thought--thinks--it would be good for you to spend some time without… back-up. Help you adjust. Others had… concerns. I'm--the risk is different, for me. And this room." Bucky looks around: just a room. Only--looks can be deceiving.

"So you got assigned the test run."

"I volunteered. Steve would never--"

"Right." He considers, if considers is the word. He waits for his brain to make its decision known to him. "I want to read your file. After that… maybe."

Bruce nods. "Alright. Well. I'll probably be in the lab, if you decide on it."

"I'll let you know," Bucky says, not sure he means it.

*

When Natasha stops by she's alone.

"Bruce reported a successful trial," Bucky notes.

"He's a scientist. It's what he does." Her mouth quirks. "I've been on Steve's side for a while now, though."

The file is thick. There are a lot of words he doesn't understand, some which he thinks he has lost, some which he thinks are new. He wonders if he would understand all the words in his own file, if, were he to read it, it would answer any of the questions he doesn't want to ask. He skips past photocopies of charts filled with numbers and traces his finger along newspaper headlines, summary reports. Not such a long story, this way, but a big one. "He looks harmless."

Natasha makes a noise between a laugh and a grunt. "I don't--I know what you mean. But I can't remember a time in my life when I could look at a man and think he was harmless. Just learning how to make certain fewer of them posed a real threat."

"But." Searching, waiting. "I pose a threat. And you're here."

She cocks her head at him. "That's true."

"So…"

She looks at the floor for a long time, brow furrowed, radiating a quiet intensity. Maybe not a long time. Maybe a minute, less. Time is confusing. "It wears you out, you know? There are risks either way. I got tired of the ones I was taking."

He does not understand this any more than he understands the strings of numbers in the file. "Where's the lab?"

Natasha looks at him, smiling: startling on her face. "Seventh floor. You can't miss it."

He thinks if anyone could, he could. He says, "Can you write that down?"

*

The sun rises. He tries to name it: sun, clouds. Sky, river. Stars, buildings. Cars. Trees, far below. Sidewalks. And smaller: movement. No--people. Clothes, boots, hands touching other hands, voices even he can't hear, jobs, families, illness, children, endless permutations even of just these things, even without throwing in ladies' shoes and wedding rings and books and the words in them and the people who wrote them who may be dead and--too much. He turns away from the window.

*

His scrap of paper says _Seventh floor -- only door you can see from the elevator._ Bruce is there, as not quite promised, leaning over a keyboard, his back to the entrance.

Bucky says, "You were trying to make another him."

Bruce doesn't startle; he straightens up and turns around. "Who? --Oh.You read the file."

"Some of it. I got the idea."

Bruce nods, eyes never leaving Bucky's face. It's uncomfortable. "I didn't know, you know. I was under the impression I was working on something different. Not a--a weapon."

"You were lied to." Bucky forgets to make his voice go up, but Bruce says anyway: "Yes."

"If you had known. Would you still have…?" A long silence, waiting for a stone to hit bottom. After long enough Bucky's not sure which of them is waiting for the other to speak.

Bruce says, "I'd like to say no. Knowing what I've learned, I like to think I would have--thought ahead that much. Not gotten swept away in discovery, or finding some kind of--biological frontier--or funding." An unhappy laugh. "But the road to hell is paved with--"

"Good intentions." A stone causing a sound lit up like sonar: a room without windows, his arms forced still, his head tilted up. Voices:

 _-Are you fucking kidding me? This isn't--this is_ not _what I signed up for. Jesus fucking Christ. I'm going to be sick._

_-Now, now. Don't be so dramatic. You wanted to create a better world._

_-This is not a better world. This is--God, he looks like a fucking kid. You can't do this to a human being._

_-Our intention was and is--_

_-Do fucking hear yourself? I mean you know what they say about the road to hell, right? And how it's paved with--_

_-Good intentions, yes. But we are not on the road to hell, I assure you. We are delivering mankind from--_

_-I cannot believe--_

_-You're being unreasonable._

_-Listen, fuck your intentions. Fuck you. Fuck this whole thing. You're not going to get away with this. I'm going to--_

Gunshot, thud. _We'll clean up later. Let's get him back first_. And then--

\--and then.

Bruce says, "Yeah. And scientists who thought you couldn't go wrong, chasing knowledge. I mean, when they were writing the papers that changed the world, did Meitner and Hahn and the rest of them stop to think--sorry. Got a little inside baseball there." He clears his throat. "My, uh. My professional ancestors have brought some pretty terrifying stuff into the world. Like the atomic bomb."

"Like me." He looks at his hands: the weakness, the weapon.

Bruce waits for him to look up before saying, "That's one way to look at it, yeah."

"What the hell is the other?"

Bruce frowns an impersonal frown: puzzling out a problem. "I don't know. If I figure it out, I'll get back to you."

As though his presence will continue. As though he is a someone whose questions linger in another someone's thoughts. "I can start tomorrow," he says, and Bruce grins.

*

When you split an atom you get a force for which there are no words. Beyond inferno. Beyond destruction. A warp at the centermost locus of reality. A momentary obliteration which becomes a permanent presence, a geographic and genetic scar. Which echoes in the land, in the memories of survivors, in the bodies of those born into its shadow. So. So. Why should splitting a human being produce a different result?

*

He does not remember this: it is not retrieved from the labyrinthine storehouse of memory. It resurfaces in the dark behind his closed eyes like a body come back to life. Like gravity reversing itself, the stone floating back to shore of its own accord. There's no word for that, either.

*

"What I could really use a hand with is data entry," Bruce says, half an apology in his cadence. "Kind of dull. If you're interested in hands-on work--"

"I'm not." He is not interested in anything. Dull is the closest thing he has heard to good. He is a blade he wishes he could dull. Maybe this will be the next best thing.

"Alright, well. If you change your mind, just let me know." Bruce walks over to the keyboard he was typing at yesterday, on a desk in front of a wide, flat screen. After a moment, Bucky follows. "Tony has all these -- virtual interfaces, and cognitive link-up programs, and… They're good for what he does. I'm a little old fashioned, though."

"Tony?"

"Yeah. He kind of owns this place? Goatee, wears a lot of black, always looks like he's had about eight cups of coffee?"

"Oh." This is remembering. "When Steve introduced me… But everyone calls him Stark."

Bruce rolls his eyes and chuckles simultaneously. "I guess they do."

"But not you. You're different." Not just the name. Everyone here is sharp edges, electric fences. Knives ready to spin through the air and trails of kerosene. Even Steve, for all his deliberate gentleness. But Bruce moves like he's afraid of bruising the air.

"I mean." He shrugs, like being the topic of discussion is uncomfortable. Bucky understands that much. "You've got all these fucking--sorry--"

"No need."

"--right, well--these fucking soldiers, and spies, and… whatever the hell Tony is… and, yeah. That's not me, if I can help it. This--" he gestures at microscopes and all manner of glass bottles and the grid lighting up the screen with a series of words filling the top boxes "--is me. Or what I want to be, anyway."

"What about--" He clamps his teeth together like there's a bit in his mouth. He shouldn't ask. He wouldn't want to answer.

"What about the other guy?" A Bruce smile: between wry and despairing. "I'm still figuring that one out. I used to think it was like--a tumor. But tumors get worse, and this got different. Not--if I could change back--but it's different now. Most days."

"In the file it calls it--"

"I know what they call it. And it's fine, for what they see. But that's not--I'm standing somewhere different. It's kind of like--sometimes you want to zoom in at the atomic level, but sometimes you want to see the cell. And you're operating with different terms, depending on what you need."

"Oh." Bucky has emptied his store of things to say.

After a moment Bruce clasps his hands together. "Right! So, I've set up this spreadsheet here--I'm testing out--"

"I don't want to know. I mean." Every piece of knowledge is a potential future loss. He was used to it but it has started to prick at his throat. "I'll just forget."

"Hey, up to you. Today I'll just be reading off numbers. We can just go by the column letters, alright? I'll call one out, and you'll just record it where I tell you to."

Up to you. He almost says nothing is up to him; he almost says he would not know how to direct the smallest course of action. His life a confluence of ley lines, pushed and pulled and knotted and cut by rotating groups of _they_. Except by the time Bruce named the possibility, it had already been fulfilled.

*

A name is a thing someone else gives you. All it means is that someone cared about you, once. Sometimes it doesn't even mean that. Sometimes it means only that you were seen.

*

"You drink a lot of coffee," Bucky says, in the third week. He has started to identify out loud things he notices, sometimes automatically, sometimes only through great strain. This is an instance of the former mode; Bruce drinks a mugful at least every three hours.

Bruce smiles, takes a sip. "There was a famous mathematician--well, famous to mathematicians--who said a mathematician was a machine for converting coffee into theorems. Scientists are similar. The ones I've known, at least. Only we don't typically get something as exciting as a theorem. We get--well, you've seen."

Bucky has seen, and let himself forget without clinging to it. Every day there are new ones; they pass from Bruce's voice through the movement of his hands to a computer that keeps them where they are no longer his concern. He is a machine for converting other people's purposes into reality; if he cannot escape that he can, perhaps, direct the flow elsewhere. His fingers on the keyboard are a train rerouted to a remote region. If it crashes no one will be harmed.

"Of course," Bruce adds, "I can't drink the real stuff anymore. Caffeine's a stimulant. Kicks up the heart rate. So I switched to decaf. But I like going through the motions."

"I get that," Bucky says. It's true.

*

"So you and Bruce seem to be getting along," Steve says.

Bucky says, "We haven't killed each other yet, if that's what you mean."

Steve grimaces. "That's not what I meant."

"Sorry. I was actually trying for a joke there." He tries now for a smile, with what he suspects are mixed results.

"Oh." Steve digests this. "Well. Good."

Bucky almost says, _Is it_? But it wouldn't be worth the look on Steve's face. He doesn't know if that look is something he has learned or something he has not-remembered. Un-forgotten.

"I guess we get along." Bruce doesn't talk much except to dictate sounds that Bucky turns into shapes on a screen other people can use for information; Bruce doesn't ask Bucky to talk except, occasionally, to read off a particular column or row. Bruce runs out to pick up sandwiches for lunch and Bucky sits and waits and fidgets with his hands: human, machine. Both of them attached to him, sitting in a room of machines Bruce mostly leaves unused and chemicals and a refrigerator filled with plates holding teeming, tumorous cultures of violently persistent life, unthinkingly awaiting future use. "It's peaceful."

"Peaceful," Steve repeats, to himself, like it's a word he had not remembered in a long time. Like Bucky is teaching him something. "I'm--I'm so glad."

"Thank you," Bucky says. "For introducing us."

Bucky did not know that Steve's smiles all felt like a show until this one, which feels like--he doesn't know. Like something beyond his vocabulary, out on a distant horizon he feels for a second pulled to. "It was my pleasure."

*

Words seep in. At first Bruce apologizes -- "Habit, I have dreams in this stuff" -- but after a while Bucky tells him not to. Tells him it's fine. No explanations, but it's valuable to know something he can expect of his tasks at just the word microarray, to know from a phrase whether he'll be using numbers or taking down observations, to pin three numbers into a series of units based on their size and order. The words are a map: they make it possible for Bruce to do whatever Bruce is doing. They make it seem more possible for Bucky to exist in the world rather than through it.

In the lab Bruce observes things and makes sense of them later. Bucky observes himself watching the sun rise every morning. He sleeps fitfully; his window faces east. But maybe those are not the only ways of telling the story. The sun rises, and he tries out a name: _beautiful_? Uncertain. He will have to keep watching.

*

Of course the color does change: otherwise it would only ever be night, or only ever be day. It changes like the hour hand of a clock: movement apparent only in retrospect. A question percolates in his brain, his mind, brewing behind his teeth. For weeks he lets it: building blocks of a different life synthesizing into the nerve to say it out loud.

*

Over pastrami on rye he asks, pulse rising: "What exactly are you working on?"

Bruce looks surprised and pleased. "I'm, uh. Myself, kind of. But not for--I mean, after the incident, I was trying to undo it. And then I was… then I kind of disappeared into other things for a while. And it was good, but. All good things, right?" Bucky stares. "Oh. You don't know that one. Must come to an end, is the saying. Anyway. I should have--I should have died. And I'm trying to figure out why I didn't. And the hope is that maybe--maybe if I can do that, I can find a way to turn it into something that will help people."

An itch ghosts down Bucky's neck. "Isn't that always the hope?"

"Well. Yeah. I mean, no, but, yeah. But at least." Bruce considers. "At least it's my blood in those vials for now."

His mortal hand is trembling. "What were you doing when you disappeared?"

"Oh, mostly medical care in places with limited access."

Limbs going stiff and cold. "I thought you weren't that kind of doctor."

"Well, not for most of my career but--wait." Bruce eyes him like--Bucky doesn't like it. He wants--he-- "Bucky. What are you… what are you thinking, exactly?"

"Why did you--why--you went and--"

Bruce speaks cautiously. "It was a way of--filling up my life with things other than--than rage, I guess. I was in a really bad place, and focusing on other people's problems--problems I could help--it was something else. It helped--hey. Bucky, what's--"

He has apparently stood up. "Like me."

"What? No, that's not--"

"I'm your fucking distraction. You--you--"

"No, _God_ , I'm sorry I made you--"

"--and you were going to--because something happened to me, too, and I didn't--" His eyes are burning. "I didn't _fucking_ die when I fucking should have and you want to figure out why and turn me into some kind of--" The words are trapped in a throat that feels like it's swallowing a knife. He turns and walks out of the room on legs that may as well be machines.

"Bucky, I-- _shit_ ," he hears, but he's gone.

*

In his room he locks the door and draws the curtain and curls up tight, tight, never small enough.

*

Steve says: "Hey. Um. I guess you want to be alone for a while. If you need anything, you know where to find me."

Sam says: "You know if you ever want to talk, I'm here."

Natasha says: "Bruce said he's worried about you? We kind of all are, actually. You've been in there more than a day."

Steve says: "Bucky. I talked to Bruce. He's really sorry--he understands if you don't want to see him anymore, but he'd like to explain, just so--for you, not for anything else."

Sam says: "Bucky? James? Barnes?"

Tony says: "Hey, I don't know if you can hear me, but I kind of assume you can, because of the whole super-bodied thing. This is Tony Stark, by the way--we met, but you were kind of out of it, so I don't know if--anyway.Um. Bruce is worried sick about you, even though I told him like twenty times there are sensory scanners that would let us know if you were dying, or--sorry, that was morbid--they're not _cameras_ , by the way, just so we're--look, the thing is Bruce is, I mean, he's like, a thousand times as good a person as I am, and he would never--I mean look at what he's been through, right? I mean, I know, look at what _you've_ been through, I can't… I can't imagine. That's probably not helpful, though. I… this might not have been a good idea. If there's anything I can do--and I can do a lot, money stuff, or tech stuff--not a real people person but I'm--I know we don't know each other, really, but hey, any friend of Bruce's is a friend of mine. So. Okay. Cool. Good talk."

Natasha says: "Bruce says he knows you don't want to hear from him but he wants you to know he's really sorry about Tony and he should have known."

*

He should have known. Again. Again. He really thought--he didn't notice he was letting himself--

_Harmless._

*

He thought. He didn't think. No one ever thinks far enough ahead. You can't think to what has never been witnessed. And yet people keep trying to touch the horizon.

Good intentions.

*

If he was wrong about Bruce he was wrong about himself. Every violence for which his body has been a site is burning him from the inside out: the ones he remembers, the ones he has unforgotten, the ones lost in their particulars but brutally living in their legacy.

He wants nothing. He wants to be nothing. He doesn't want to talk. He wants not to talk. He wants to self-detonate. He was right the first time: Not Bucky. Not safe.

*

And then--

\--and then.

*

And then he doesn't die, again.

*

The point at which a place in his body knew to expect being locked up and reset again comes and goes and his heart still beats so that he can feel it when he touches his chest. His chest still rises and falls bringing air in and out of lungs which accept it gratefully even as he is not grateful. He looks at his hands: the one he was born with, the one he wasn't. An unwanted gift which is nonetheless his. Like a name. Like a life.

*

He has just enough in him to know that none of the other _theys_ ever said sorry. Not remembering. Not unforgetting. Feeling a key fit into a lock he did not know someone had carved.

*

Steve says: "Bucky, I--" and he opens the door.

"When I want to talk I'll tell you," he says.

Steve's face doesn't become less concerned. "Okay."

He's missing something, Bucky realizes. "I mean, I will. _When_." Something shifts in him: a train swerving onto a new track. A different risk to shoulder.

"Oh," Steve says, and then, " _oh_. Okay." A smile Bucky wants to see again. The second time, he realizes. Remembers. Learns.

*

When you reach the horizon you don't know you've reached the horizon. The horizon is just as far as it was. But that doesn't negate the travel. You never get closer to the horizon. You can get farther from where you've been.

*

When Bruce opens the door he looks surprised and glad. Bruce has a gift for being two ways at once. Bucky is working on it.

Bruce says, "You're here."

Bucky says, "Guess we have something in common."

Bruce laughs, startled. "It's a real pain in the ass, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Bucky agrees. His face is easing into a smile, of its own accord.

"Listen. I'm so sorry. I should have--"

"It's--" He doesn't say _It's okay_. He doesn't say, _I should have_. He doesn't know what okay means, or what they should have done. He needs more information. It could take a while. "One thing at a time, okay?"

"Yeah. Okay. Very okay." He glances behind him. "Where do you want to begin?"

Bucky hesitates. "Can you show me--not the things you're doing. Just--the tools you use. All that stuff on your tables. The names, I guess." Landmarks for future journeying. Or a way to spend a morning.

Bruce steps aside to let him in. "It would be my pleasure."

Bruce names different microscopes and platters and shapes of glass. He shows Bucky how to use a pipette and set up a slide. Bucky closes an eye to look down at a set of cells with a long name he can ask about again later: a living kaleidoscope, a new world revealed from the inside of things he would not have expected to have an inside.

At midday they go together to order pastrami on rye and eat on a bench by a nearby fountain. The air is warmer than the last time Bucky allowed it to touch his skin, more humid. Sweat collects on his scalp, evidence of a body doing what a body does, evidence of a person doing one of the infinite things a person might do. From this angle the people on the street are almost familiar, and he realizes the name for the thing that was too much: life. They work into the night. Bucky sleeps, dreams, wakes, sleeps. The sun rises. It does that every morning. Whether or not anyone is watching. Whether or not anyone wants it to.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The genesis of this story predates it, but [this exquisite fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2155695) is almost certainly the reason anything about the bomb snuck in here. The line about mathematicians and coffee is frequently attributed to Paul Erdős, but other sources pin it to Alfred Rényi. Anything remotely accurate about science is thanks to my little brother; all errors are mine. I cry a lot about Bucky Barnes [on Tumblr](http://prettyboysdontlookatexplosions.tumblr.com).


End file.
